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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27263683">The Garbage Prince</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucy_drake_paints/pseuds/lucy_drake_paints'>lucy_drake_paints</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Vampire: The Masquerade, World of Darkness (Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Living Together, Marriage, Mystery, New York City, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Original Male Character - Freeform, Other, Prostitution, Slow Romance, This is a love story, Vampire Sex, Vampires, malkavian - Freeform, mutual growth, seriously</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:54:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,234</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27263683</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucy_drake_paints/pseuds/lucy_drake_paints</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A memoir of a lost soul finding hope, love and life in the underbelly of a city.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Garbage Prince</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Garbage Prince</p><p>I keep trying to figure out where to start. My mind just keeps going back to that night, that park, I don't know how else to begin. I was young, far too young to be in Saratog park trying to pick a John in clothes far too thin for the wind that was blowing. It must have been fall because there wasn't snow just yet.<br/>I saw him walk past me, my garbage Prince I just didn't know that yet. Tall, fair and sickly. I had no idea what he was on or what he wasn't. It was twitchy and wearing an odd assortment of stained denim. He noticed me and I him. He made a motion of hush as he pointed to the stars and then half ambled and half dance into the night. I was fresh meat and out of my depth. My John got rough with me, rougher than I could handle back then and must have hit my head because when I woke up my Prince was there.<br/>“Are you gazing at the stars too?” <br/>Suddenly he lay on the ground next to me.<br/>“No it's dirt angels!”<br/>Despite myself I laughed. I was wary but he just looked at me curiously. Still clutching my money I wander with him to a disused parking garage. My Prince bowed and saluted the many people there and I crept in behind him. Slowly he beckoned me toward Miss Lola. <br/>Miss Lola was a better mother than I ever had. She showed me how to take care of myself and even gave me my first baseball bat.<br/>“A woman should be soft,” she said “ and know how to break an elbow and nose”.<br/>The Garage was filled with all kinds of people. You had The Trolly Dollies who collected. The Soldiers screaming in mud and dust that had washed off long ago. There were singers, poets and dreamers who chased butterflies no-one else could see. There were three Jesuses (is that the plural of Jesus?) Black Jesus, Jimmy Jesus (sometimes he was Jimmy and sometimes he was Jesus) and Mean Jesus who wasn't above stealing and being an asshole. Which I told him when he was trying to rob my stuff while he was preaching at me.<br/>The whole place would light up in a different way when Eddie was there. He would blow in for a night or visit for a week and then disappear again. He barely said a word to me but would cock his head and smile. He would sing loud songs and dance with the Trolley Dollies and for a moment you could see the woman they might have once been.<br/>I lived in the Garage for nearly 2 years. It was an education. I learned that somethings are treasure and some things are garbage and it is almost impossible to decide which is which. I learned how to wash in a Burger King bathroom. How to make a fire and keep it going. What a man wants but doesn't say and who is going to beat you as soon as they can. I got some scars but I also gave some. Lola taught me kindness, how goodness was fragile and beautiful. <br/>I'll never forget the winter she died and her “family” took her and buried her as Michael and she some how died again. The Garage wept for Lola, howled for her, screamed long into the night.<br/>Eddie blew in less often then but we had our fire but it wasn't as warm any more. I never remember Eddie hurting anyone except once. Some pimps had been pushing us around and he hadn't been able to charm them round. So he danced with this guy on the top of the Garage, like a waltz or something and just flung him off the roof. We all were silent but Eddie just kept singing and dancing. It was like he didn't really understand. We gently herded him downstairs. We knew he had to protect our strange Garbage Prince. He didn't mean no harm, not really he was just easily confused. <br/>The police eventually came and cleared us out of the Garage. Eddie found me shivering wet through on a stoop. He just leads me to an apartment building and jimmies a window from the fire-escape.<br/>It's small and weird and we both look at the stain on the floor and without saying nothing Eddie covers it with the rug.<br/>I start to take of my things but he turns away. I'm confused because I couldn't think of a reason a man would bring me out of the cold save one.<br/>“Isn't this what you want Eddie?”<br/>He goes awful quiet and he takes a blanket from a couch and wraps it around my shoulders.<br/>“A great Lady, such as yourself should have every comfort. Tis' terrible weather and you could get ill.”<br/>He was doing this strange old world voice he did sometimes, but I knew like three Jesuses. Then he kneels down and takes my hand and he looks at me and I feel it. All the stuff poets and all that talk about. His pale blue eyes and fair lashes and my stomach flips and he kisses the palm of my hand.<br/>Years later I would hear La Traviata and I knew someone else had felt what I felt. I touch his face and I am holding my breath but he lets go of my hand and quietly slips out of the window.<br/>I don't know how long a stood there for. I used the shower and slept in a bed. My Prince had bewitched me. <br/>For a time I would work and he would find me another apartment. He would sometimes bring me gifts and sometimes they would be amazing, a fur coat, a gold necklace and sometimes there would be leaves in my bed instead of rose petals because he couldn't tell the difference.<br/>We would talk and he taught me how to dance. Sometimes he gave me strange poems he had written or old weird books and I did my best to read them. Sometimes our dates would be to dumpsters and he was so happy with his strange treasures. <br/>He would tell me of his other life. He had been born in 1836 and his parent wanted him to be a doctor. He had wanted to be a poet. <br/>“Dearest Mamaaaaa and Papaaaaa, I wish to be a poet! Come now-” he would do all the voices<br/>“Come now Son- you are destined forrr grrrreat things. None of this piffle!”<br/>I would take his hand and kiss it.<br/>“I love my Garbage Prince, my poet.”<br/>He would smile yet I could still see a great sadness in him. He took me to a tenement block they were building just to show me the city light.<br/>“Best view in Gotham.”<br/>It was too. It was there he drew me into his arms as though to dance but instead to my surprise he kisses me. He was cold but it was a delight to me. I open my eyes to find him on one knee. He takes out an enormous diamond ring which is covered in blood and places on my finger.<br/>“My Garbage Princess?”<br/>I try and explain between my tears.<br/>“My job, you know what I do-”<br/>“Do you love them?”<br/>“No, never-”<br/>“Then I could never care for if your heart is mine, what care I for anything else.”<br/>That night he carried me as though I was a feather through a fire escape window into our new home for the night. Then he carried me to bed.<br/>I had never made love before, I mean I'd fucked plenty but this was different. I was different. Eddie was different.<br/>Tender but not hesitant. I had never know such pleasure. His cold hands against my fevered flesh. The world dropped away into darkness and nothing and only his touch and only his mouth meant anything. When he penetrated my flesh and rode me slowly and gently I lost my own name. <br/>I didn't even mind that he wrapped himself in a thick blanket and slept in the closet.<br/>I don't want you to get the impression he was always there, or that he was always there when he was with me because that wouldn't be the truth. He would blow in and out just like the Garage days.<br/> It was blissful. He would still leave me strange gifts, I liked the old records best but we didn't always have the equipment to play them. He liked opera best and I supposed it suited his temperament. Then we had our first fight. I mean I'd called him an asshole before because that's what you do when someone put leaves in your bed, but this was different.<br/>I wanted to go to the hospital. To a clinic.<br/>“Why? Why do you need a hospital.”<br/>“I just need you to take me I have the money saved up-”<br/>“Money? I can give you money!”<br/>“No I just need you to take me and pick me up after...”<br/>“No hospitals! No, no, no. Maggie I forbid it.”<br/>“You what? I have to go. Please. I have to.”<br/>“Don't be ridiculous what could you need to go to the hospital for?!<br/>“Because I'm pregnant.”<br/>I am not sure what I thought would happen. I had planned to getting it taken care of. I mean nether of us were “stable”. I wasn't 100 percent certain it was even his and I thought I'd just tidy things up.<br/>Suddenly all of the anger is gone and he is as still as a statue. I mean totally frozen. For like a good five minutes.<br/>“I am going to be a father.”<br/>I open my mouth but he just keeps saying over and over. So I nod crying. He puts his ear to my belly and makes noises like he is listening and then speaks a load of gibberish back. My heart breaks open and I swear I fall in love with my Prince even more.<br/>The next time we move we are in the tenement block where we first kissed, the same apartment. It is now fully built and we had not used the fire-escape but the front hall. I look confused but my Prince is bursting with glee. We go in through the door and he hands me a key.<br/>“Your Majesty.”<br/>He opens the door and I graciously (as my royal self) inspect the place. Two bed rooms, a living room/kitchen and bathroom. But best of all is of course the view. <br/>“Best view of the city.”<br/>I did ask him how and I didn't believe him when he said he just gave them a bag of money but the sup said that was exactly how it went.<br/>When he was with us he would play opera at me, for the baby. Bringing me flowers (from graves and gardens). He bought a lot of parenting books and I even read a couple. He would still sleep all day in the closet when he was with me but it was just normal now. This was the most normal my whole life had been. I mean sure before I left home it looked normal but it was awful. Part of me was scared I might be like that. Like it might just happen but it didn't. <br/>It was strange to live in one place. To have my own things. I liked the record player best. It was like the ones you get in movies. <br/>As my time came closer and closer and really wanted to have the baby in the hospital but Eddie insisted we had the baby at home with a doctor there. In the end I agreed. Though I am pretty sure I broke a finger near the end, not that Eddie said a damn thing. I'm standing in our little kitchen (it's the only place with linoleum) and the lady doctor catches our baby girl.<br/>We go round and round for a name but in the end we settle with Joy Lola. Eddie was great with the baby, when he was there, nappies bottle, whole nine yards.<br/>When I would ask him he would say he “had to go back to his garbage world where nothing was anything”. He brought money more often now but I was also still working. One of the girls in building wanted to work, I told her I'd send some her way which I did and I took a little cut.<br/>That is how it started. In the end half the building later I barely need to work at all. I taught them all how to use a baseball bat too. When Eddie Jr was born I stopped working. I mean I still helped the girls. Kept the money tight. Paid the right people to look the wrong way. Keep the place clean and so on. Life was good. Black Jesus hung around by the bodega and I'd give him smokes or a sandwich. <br/>Eddie would sweep in with gifts that definitely hadn't been stolen for the kids and they were spoilt. They were smart too, as well as smart mouthed, Joy was more Lola than I might have bargained for. She was 12 when I caught her cussing out one of my girls downstairs. I could have smacked her in the mouth, but then I remembered what it like when my old Dad had done it and stopped mid-swing.<br/>Still they were good kids. Then Eddie started acting weird. Which is to say he seemed scared, and I even seen him scared of shit he should be scared off. He would make up games with clues and riddles only I or the kids would know. He would say things like “If I die, you'll come and find me won't you?”<br/>I would tell him “Eddie you ain't gonna die.”<br/>But I'd get this knot inside me because he always looked so sick.<br/>Then he didn't come home. I knew something was wrong. I went out to look for him. Then the police came.<br/>Remains found in a burned car...I didn't believe it I had to see and I went and saw the car. Yet opposite was a building with a painting like Eddie would do and I found a poem in an old can. I'd find a clue in a poem and then have to find the next.<br/>The whole thing lead me a merry dance all over the place until I figured I'd call home, check on the kids but there was no answer. I came home to the whole building ablaze. No sign of my kids and I just sort of lost it.<br/>I don't remember how I got to Prospect Park. I just remember staring at this house I didn't recognise holding Eddie's poem tears streaming down my face. The wind skittering dead leaves against the railings. <br/>A strange man in a suit came and ushered me through an ivy covered gate into a big house. It was a mansion. My shoes are wet and muddy and the house sits between Wayne manner and The Addams family. Lots of old wood and red carpets. I slowly become more aware.<br/>I can hear music. I can hear La Traviata.<br/>“Eddie?”<br/>“Dr Dunn will be with you in a little while.”<br/>The butler, I know, leads me to a sitting room the size of two of my apartments to a sofa I kinda feel bad sitting on. The sun sets and the opera begins to draw to a close. Finally Eddie comes in. I fling myself at him. Relieved and shocked.<br/>“Eddie what are you doing in that monkey suit? What are we doing here? The kids, oh gawd, the kids!”<br/>“It is awful isn't it.” <br/>He claws at his collar. He smiles and I know I can forgive him anything and I wonder if he can forgive me.<br/>“Eddie there was a fire. Everything is gone. I don't know where the kids are. Eddie-”<br/>I am sobbing again and he looks at me curiously almost like the first time I saw him.<br/>“Come on, everything is fine. Come on. You'll be late to the party.”<br/>“Eddie it isn't fine-”<br/>Some lady or other pull me into a room and I am shown a bathroom which is rude but not inaccurate, better than a Burger King bathroom I suppose. I am sat in the fluffest towels staring as this lady does my hair. I haven't had anyone brush my hair since Lola. There are two dresses on the bed and both of them are more expensive than my whole building that is rubble and ashes. I choose a dark blue one. It feels wonderful and sort of awful to wear it. I am given new shoes that fit perfectly. Not shoes that fit okay but perfectly. I'd never noticed the difference until they were on my feet.<br/>I'm having a Cinderella moment but this feels off. Like too sweet food to hide poison. I am lead by the butler who looks less like a person and more like a ghost to the ball room. There is music playing by like musicians (and not the denim covered in vomit kind) like in suits. People are talking  and everyone is real fancy. There is a hush and then there is Eddie. But not like my Eddie. Like his twin perhaps. His hair is neat and combed, no leaves or dust. He is stiff, but I imagine the suit isn't helping. He walks to the middle of the room and there is a strange man with a golden stick and he yells<br/>“Our Prince, Doctor Edward Dunn.”<br/>Now I'm am somewhat confused but I am also mad. I also know this is not the place to pitch a fit even though I want to. Play the game, that's the way until you figure out how to win. Good wisdom I got young and gave to my girls too.<br/>“Thank you all for coming- tonight I have something special to announce. I would like everyone to meet..my wife.”<br/>Now everyone one is looking and me and there is like a murmur. You can tell this is some kind of scandal. So I did what I do. I smiled. Dipped a shoulder. I was soft. The music strikes up and Eddie has me in his arms and I am smiling. Smiling in a way that Eddie knows isn't a smile.<br/>“The kids-”<br/>“Are here.”<br/>I relax a little.<br/>“Like here here, at the party?”<br/>“No they are upstairs. No you can't see them yet. Not until this is over.”<br/>“What is this Eddie?”<br/>“This is my garbage life. The dead one full of costumes and lies.”<br/>“You're a doctor?”<br/>“I was once. Now I am a poet Prince. Of all this garbage”<br/>The room was spinning. 1,2,3,1,2,3. The faces blurred and it felt like an awful carnival ride.<br/>“I don't like it Eddie. I'm scared.”<br/>“I know but Maggie do you love me?”<br/>“Oh Eddie you're an asshole. Yes I love you.”<br/>“Then let me save you. Give me tonight and I swear you and the kids will be safe but our real life won't be the same again. I am so sorry.”<br/>I put my best smile on. I watched the room. It looked at me in a mix of distaste and desire. It was a look I was used to. The dance came to an end and everyone politely clapped, so I did.<br/>Everyone arranged themselves around the room and in theatrical fashion like I did in our tiny apartment I took Eddie's hand.<br/>Two velvet cushions were placed on the marble floor and Eddie and I knelt. The guy with the stick came back and started saying a lot of Latin, like church Latin not bodega Latin. After what felt like an eternity he stops with the Latin and says<br/>“Do you Edward Frederick Dunn take Margaret May Hirsh to be your wife?”<br/>“I do.”<br/>Now I am wide eyed as fuck but am like half way through a wedding, my wedding before I know I am getting married.<br/>“Do you Margaret May Hirsh take Edward Frederick Dunn to be your husband?”<br/>“I do.”<br/>“Let it be blessed what is most holy.”<br/>He is  given a gold cup. Not like golden but like actual gold and takes both my hand and Eddies and pour fucking blood over them. Then he dabs some on our foreheads. Something weird starts to happen as the blood doesn't just sit there is vanishes. Like a magic trick. Everyone begins to stamp and scream. We are then chased out of the room to a small anti chamber.<br/>My mask drops and Eddie who never get upset by anything might have seen the murder in my eyes as he begins backing away from me and it isn't even like I have a bat.  <br/>“It isn't allow. What we have, what we had. I kept it secret for so long but I was found out and this way the only way they wouldn't hurt you or the kids...”<br/>My wrath was silent. My fury absolute, until the door opened and the smile went back on.<br/>“Ah newly weds! Dr and Mrs Dunn. Congratulations to you both.” <br/>His every word felt oily and his pock marked face screamed insincerity.<br/>“Thank you O'Shay. Lovely night for it. Must get on.”<br/>Eddie shut the door, not quite in his face but nearly. I was about to throw an ornamental vase of some kind at his head when the room began to spin again. I placed a hand on a weird half table as black began to creep around the edges of my vision. <br/>Well whatever was suppose to happen next I was whisked from the room in Eddies arms. I became a bit less fuzzy and I realise I am drinking something.<br/>“What is that? Some magic potion or blood or something?”<br/>“It's Mountain Dew, I also have a bologna sandwich with a schmear of mustard.”<br/>I peered at it suspiciously but ate it all the same. I couldn't remember the last time I had eaten anything. Or used the bathroom. I unsteadily wobbled to the bathroom and peed. I kept the door open to keep an eye on him and he seemed to doing the same. I washed my hands and looked in the mirror. I barely recognised myself and I hated it.<br/>I tried to take off the dress without much success and Eddie took it off and Eddie tore off his own suit.<br/>“I hate it.”<br/>“I know love. I know.”<br/>“I don't understand.”<br/>“Well. When was I born?”<br/>“1836...”<br/>I was having that feeling you get when you're in the sea and suddenly it gets too deep and you feel this fear to look down. <br/>“And my parents?”<br/>“Were Agnes and John Henry Dunn.”<br/>“What were they like?”<br/>“They were stiff and hollow and wanted a doctor not a son.”<br/>“I've never lied to you. You never asked much and when I did I told you about my garbage life with my garbage people and I always came back to you, to my real life.”<br/>“You didn't tell me you were rich.”<br/>“Does it matter?”<br/>“I don't know, I'm trying to think if it could have fixed things and none of the stuff could have been fixed by just throwing money at it. I want to be mad at you because it feels so, so, garbage. It is as garbage as you said it was and I don't know why that makes me so mad.”<br/>“Do you want to see the kids?”<br/>After finding some clothes went to see the kids. They were sleeping. Junior look so young and small because the bed he was in was so large. He murmured wordlessly in his sleep. Joy woke when we went in.<br/>“Mom?”<br/>“Hey baby, you okay?<br/>“Yeah, weird day.”<br/>“Yeah.”<br/>“Is Dad okay?”<br/>“For now he is just fine.”<br/>This seemed to satisfy her as she went back to sleep. I placed my head on the door as I closed it.<br/>Eddie and I silently went back to his room and went to the bathroom to take off my make-up and brush my teeth and in the cabernet were all the products I usually use. I took it all off and got into bed.<br/>“What we are going to tell the kids are that your parents died. That they were horrible and you hated them but they left you all this money and things are going to be different but it's okay. That you are part of some secret masonic club or theatre group but you have to be because of the will or whatever. They can stay and go to some expensive school because of how much you hated boarding school, unless it isn't safe for them?”<br/>“No it's safe.”<br/>“I love you Eddie don't tell me everything please. I can't tonight. Okay?”<br/>So I turn over to go to sleep and he is still standing there.<br/>“Come to bed Eddie.”<br/>And he does. He lies behind me and he is still there when I wake up.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is a standalone piece that was based on a dream I had, I thought I would add it now while my other stories are still being worked on.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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